The Warrior King (Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

everything he told her to the Balsalomians? That would muddle the situation. First, it would get Daniel agitated about the sultan’s plans for the girl, and it would make Marialla wary. She was here to marry Mufashe, not to be a rival for some child. Then there were the guards and slaves, all with the loose tongues common to that low sort of person. Word of Chantmer’s plans could easily get back to the sultan’s eunuch.
    Meanwhile, Markal and Darik were waiting for him to deliver Sofiana so they could smuggle her out of the city. He’d told them he was unable to get alone with the girl, yet here he was. Apart from that, he’d mostly told them the truth. And they had mostly believed him, he guessed. Chantmer glanced around, suddenly suspicious that he was being spied upon by Markal. It was what he would have done had the situation been reversed.
    But the courtyard was empty of people. There were a few chittering birds up in the leafy branches of the cork trees, and green and gold lizards rested in the shady gaps between the stones of the walls and arches, but nothing seemed out of place.
    “Wait, it’s not the sultan you want me to kill, is it?” Sofiana said.
    “Of course not.”
    “Good, because he is in love with the princess.”
    Chantmer raised an eyebrow. “You don’t understand this business if you think it has anything to do with love.”
    She looked annoyed. “Oh, I know. It’s about having the sultan marry Kallia’s sister so there will be an alliance between Marrabat and Balsalom. The sultan has lots of wives and concubines already. So maybe he doesn’t love her yet, but he desires her.”
    “That’s . . . closer to the truth.” 
    “I’ve heard the grand vizier and King Daniel and Princess Marialla talking.” Sofiana grabbed hold of the lowest branch of the cork tree and swung herself up. She sat with her bare, dirty feet dangling in the air and rubbed her hand over the thick rough bark. “They want the sultan’s armies to help fight the dark wizard and they’ll trade Marialla to get it.”
    “You understand our side’s motives. What you don’t understand is the desire of Sultan Mufashe. He doesn’t want to marry Marialla.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” she said, climbing higher. “Marialla is the most beautiful woman in the world—everybody knows that. Any man would want to marry her. That’s what Kallia said.”
    “I don’t think the khalifa understands Mufashe’s appetites, either. Let me explain.”
    Sofiana was now almost to the top of the tree, the slender branches swaying under her weight, but as he began to tell her what he’d seen in Roghan’s quicksilver, she stopped and came somberly back to the ground. There, she listened with a look of growing horror.
    #
    “That’s disgusting,” Sofiana said when Chantmer finished. “How should I poison him?”
    “I told you, you’re not poisoning the sultan. That would mean the death of us all, and anyway, we still need him. It’s his chief slave you need to kill, a eunuch by the name of Faalam. If he falls, the sultan loses his eyes and ears in the palace. Then, we slip you out of Marrabat with Markal and Darik. That will be a good deal easier with the eunuch dead.”
    “I’ll worry about escaping later.” Her face was grim and serious, making him forget temporarily how young she was. “Now how do I administer the poison?”
    She was so eager. And trusting. The perfect combination of young and naive and without fear.
    But this was still a delicate business. Every evening for the past ten days Chantmer had removed a single grain of the silver bite and let it dissolve in the perspiration of his palm. It made him violently ill the first time he did so, and he had spent the night shaking in alternating hot and cold chills. It was especially unpleasant given the oppressive heat here in the south, and no magic or tincture had been able to ease the discomfort. The next night he had done the same thing and suffered similar